This blog was created to show how the government of BC has lied, or reneged on political promises. The record of the Liberal Government in BC has been appalling since they were first elected.And in the legislature all they can say is "we can't comment it's before the courts".

3/13/2009

Revalations in the 8000 pages

BY NEAL HALLVANCOUVER SUN - MARCH 6, 2009

Newly disclosed government documents from the Basi-Virk corruption trial reveal that the B.C. Liberal cabinet decided Oct. 1, 2003 that CN Rail was the winning bidder of the $1-billion privatization sale of BC Rail.

The controversial decision wasn’t made public until 55 days later, on Nov. 25, 2003.

But before then, other bidders were already upset about the fairness of the process, the documents reveal.

One of the new documents is a letter sent Jan. 14, 2002, from OmniTrax chief executive Gary Rennick to then-transport minister Judith Reid, indicating OmniTrax, one of the U.S. bidders, had been discussing the privatization of BC Rail with the government since 2001. ......[snip]

I was advised in a conversation recently from a fairly well placed source that this deal may well have been concluded as much as 6 months prior, making all the bidding and the Charles River reports a sham.

Question: If a company orders a fleet of vehicles, how long would it take to deliver that fleet?

Answer: It would take up to or more than 6 months.

Reason: All these vehicles would have to be fitted with special equipment such as the trucks (rail wheels) under those self propelled maintenance vehicles you see running up and down the tracks and that is not an overnight job with a fleet this size. The mechanical maintenance (land) fleet would require almost as much time. And specifications would need to be drafted, bids would have to be submitted and selected. All this takes time. A lot of time.

So how is it that all the new white trucks were in place at about the time that this deal was announced? And why did I see a couple of these units on the tracks in my area before the deal was announced? At the time I was not aware of the giveaway of BC Rail (mainly due to lack of reporting in the MSM and partly because I was in Ontario at the time) and I just thought they (CN) were given permission to use the tracks as sometimes happens.

But this equipment was there. And some of the pieces didn't even have the logo on them.

Now we need to find out when the railcars started disappearing from the BC Rail tracks. There were a large number of CN cars appearing at about the same time as the BC Rail cars were disappearing.

There is a lot more to this than has been uncovered in the 8000 pages.

I'm working on the old track records. I asked for some guidance from a couple of people but they may be engrossed in the 8000 pages. So I'll plod ahead.

As far as a rail line being a public highway, only in BC. We own the tracks and railbed but my understanding is that they paved the trackbed from Horseshoe bay to Squamish. So I guess that we now own a railbed with no tracks and have a new highway.

I hope I can make another trek down there in a couple of months. I'll go over the Duffy Lake Road and see just what has happened. Maybe some anono's out there could fill us in for the time being.

Also, there was a disclaimer on the interim Fairness report that I have been searching for. I thought I downloaded it but can't seem to find it. It basically stated that CRA couldn't issue the initial report on time because of issues with "freedom of information" and the government hacks.